Covid-19: Fate of travel bubble with South Australia pending

It’s understood New Zealand officials are undertaking a risk assessment of the Covid-19 situation in South Australia, following news of a snap-lockdown being introduced.

Stuff understands the assessment was happening at 3.30pm on Tuesday.

From 6pm Australian time (8pm NZT), South Australia would move into a seven-day lockdown after five Covid-19 cases were confirmed, all linked to an elderly man who travelled from Argentina via New South Wales, where he completed 14 days in managed isolation.

The outbreak was confirmed to be the highly infectious Delta variant.

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Quarantine-free travel had already been paused with NSW and Victoria. A decision on South Australia was pending.

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“We hate putting these restrictions in place but we believe we have one chance to get this right,” Premier Steven Marshall​ said on Tuesday.

“We have no alternative but to impose some fairly heavy and immediate restrictions to come in.”

The restrictions limited movement in the community, with people only allowed to leave home to care for someone, for essential work, to exercise with someone from the same household, to buy essential items, or to get a Covid-19 test or vaccination.

So far, no announcement had been made over the fate of New Zealand’s quarantine-free travel with South Australia, which was already paused with neighbouring states Victoria and NSW.

The Government was planning to review the settings in Victoria and NSW on Wednesday.

The fifth case to be identified in the new South Australian cluster was “far more worrying” than existing confirmed cases, Marshall said. This man in his 60s was not a familial connection to the original case and had been to a “celebratory function” at a restaurant with another case.

It was believed the space wasn’t well ventilated and there was potentially singing and loud talking – actions that made it easy for the virus to spread.

Anyone who had been at this restaurant – The Greek on Halifax – was told by chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier​ to immediately isolate and get tested.